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By Nellie Peyton
JOHANNESBURG, April 14 (Reuters) - South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has chosen Roelf Meyer, a former chief government negotiator during talks to end white minority rule in the 1990s, to be his country’s next ambassador to the United States.
"I can confirm that President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed Mr Roelf Meyer as South Africa’s Ambassador to the US," Ramaphosa’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya told Reuters on Tuesday.
Meyer, who later served in the unity government of Nelson Mandela, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
South Africa has not had an ambassador in Washington since its last one, Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled in March 2025 after angering the Trump administration.
Relations between Washington and Pretoria have been tense during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Trump has made false claims about the persecution of South Africa’s white Afrikaner minority, and created a refugee programme for them -- which Pretoria regards as a preferential immigration scheme for whites.
Meyer, 78, is himself Afrikaner. The veteran politician began his career as a parliamentarian in 1979 under P.W. Botha, the defiant face of white rule at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle. He later served as minister of defence and then constitutional affairs under President F.W. de Klerk.
He gained prominence negotiating for the National Party during talks to end apartheid, becoming its chief negotiator in 1993, the year before South Africa’s first democratic elections.
Ramaphosa was the chief negotiator for the African National Congress, the liberation movement at the time, and both men were recognised for their work in breaking deadlocked negotiations.
Ramaphosa "describes him as a true citizen committed to a non-racial South Africa", according to a biography of Meyer on South Africa’s presidency website.